Jim FisherRyloThe Rylo camera captures 360-degree video, but with the intent of cropping and displaying it in a traditional manner. It's a great concept, but it needs more pixels to deliver clear results.

Pricey. Finished video could look better. Editing software needs some improvement. Cable required for file transfer to phone. No Android support at launch.

Bottom Line

The Rylo camera captures 360-degree video, but with the intent of cropping and displaying it in a traditional manner. It's a great concept, but it needs more pixels to deliver clear results.

Most 360-degree cameras are touted for capturing the entire world around their dual lenses, but that's about it. The Rylo ($499.99), the eponymous first product from a new start-up, goes beyond that. It ships with software that makes it easy to extract a 16:9 frame from the spherical video, complete with smooth, automated pans, subject tracking, and very effective image stabilization. It's a slick solution and it makes the Rylo a more versatile tool than other 360 cams, but limited resolution is an issue—the finished video is on the soft side and shows artifacts. The GoPro Fusion doesn't have as refined a user experience (yet), but its 5.2K capture resolution nets better-looking video.

Design

The Rylo is a small, capsule-shaped camera with two lenses and a dark gray finish. It measures just 1.5 by 2.9 by 1.7 inches (HWD) and weighs about 3.8 ounces. It's a standalone device, so you don't need to plug it into a phone to control it as you do with the similarly sized Insta360 One. There is an on-camera information display, so you can see if it's set to image or video capture and whether or not it's recording.

There are two lenses, one on each side of the Rylo, with each covering a 208-degree field of view, so they can see behind themselves. Their coverage overlaps, which should help to hide seams in video.

There's no tripod socket, but Rylo sells an accessory mounting cage, with a standard GoPro mount, that also includes a short column for handholding the device, which itself sports a tripod socket at its base. The mounting kit is included for early adopters, but it's unclear how long the company will include it for free with purchase.

Footage is recorded to microSD memory (a 16GB card is included), and there's a micro USB port to charge the removable battery; it's good for an hour on a full charge. There's no Wi-Fi, so you need to use an included cable to connect the device to your iPhone to transfer footage.

I would have liked to have seen an on-camera Lightning connector, so you don't have to worry about packing an extra cable along with the camera, but that design choice would have necessitated separate versions of the camera for Android and iOS devices. At press time only iOS software is available, but Android support is promised in the future.

Despite its form factor, the Rylo isn't a ruggedized action camera. I mounted it on a dog harness, but don't expect to take it diving. There is a waterproof case available for an extra $69.99, but it's only rated for a 10-foot (3-meter) depth. If you want a go-anywhere 360 cam, with a similar approach to presenting 360-degree footage (GoPro calls its panning and cropping system OverCapture), you'll need to spend more on the GoPro Fusion.

Software

The Rylo wants to be a 360 camera that isn't a 360 camera. That's to say, the founders of the company, both former programmers at Instagram, feel that the user experience in viewing 360-degree content natively, either on a screen or in a headset, isn't the most compelling use of the capture format.

They've designed the Rylo app to make it easy to crop a 16:9 (or square-format) frame from the 360-degree video. I've used the app quite a bit and it is very intuitive. You use pinch gestures to zoom in or out of the frame, swipe the screen to change the field of view, and use Force Touch motions to set anchor points (displayed as red dots) for changes in field of view. The speed at which the focus pans from one area of the frame to another depends on how drastic the change of view is, and how far apart two anchor points are on the timeline.

You aren't limited to manual pans either. The app can recognize and track subjects, and does so smoothly, although if the subject dips out of view you'll need to identify it again. But it worked pretty well in my tests. The app does other things too—including picture-in-picture, and a side-by-side split view that shows multiple parts of the 360 frame simultaneously. There's a Little Planet view too, but unfortunately there's no way to move in and out of it in an animated manner, as you can with the Premiere Pro CC editing tools that GoPro provides with the Fusion. It's something I'd like to see added, as transitioning to and from Little Planet is a fun effect.

That's not the only drawback to the software. I found the editing tools to be very simplistic. I was shooting long clips with the intent of trimming out portions later. And yes, you can mark in and out points to cut down the length of video. But there's no way to set multiple trim points in a single clip. Once I had a selection made and exported to my camera roll, I had to move the in and out points on the same clip, losing my previous selection. Saving out trimmed selections as virtual copies would go a long way to make up for the lack of a proper multi-track editing timeline.

You do get some basic exposure adjustment control with the app, which is a plus. It's easy to underexpose 360-degree footage because there's generally a lot of sky in the frame. The app lets you adjust exposure, highlights, shadows, and contrast, as well as color vibrance and tone.

Video Quality

Video can be exported in landscape or portrait orientation at 1080p—the app decides based on how you're holding your phone, so your video can be made to fit the wide-screen frame of YouTube or the narrow, tall confines of Instagram Stories. There's also a square format export option. And, if you do want to share video for 360-degree playback, the app will stitch and export footage (at 4K) in an equirectangular format that can be uploaded to YouTube or Facebook.

As for how it looks, well, it depends on the screen you're using to view it. On my iPhone 8 Plus I thought the quality was acceptable, but once I moved footage over to a 27-inch iMac screen, its flaws become more apparent. The Rylo outputs 1080p video at a solid 24Mbps compression rate, but there are still a number of artifacts visible, and detail is just soft in general. It simply doesn't scale up for playback on bigger screens.

Rylo also touts the camera's stabilization. I was very happy with how well it steadied footage. Other cameras have struggled when mounted to our energetic two-year-old dog Duke, but the Rylo's stabilization algorithm removes jitters and keeps the horizon level, without you having to think about either. It's not perfect; when Duke runs at full speed there are some noticeable jumps in the frame, and even at more moderate speeds we see some ghosting in Ginger, who is running beside him at a steady pace. This an extreme case—for more modest stabilization requirements, the Rylo keeps video smooth without ghosts or jumps.

Stitching is good for the most part, although I did notice some seams from time to time. They're apparent if an object gets too close to the side of the camera, near the periphery of edge coverage. But they can also be an issue in mixed lighting. In one shot with the sun low on the horizon, the difference in exposure between the lens facing it and the other facing away is visible. You need to look closely, however—the Rylo handles this situation better than many other 360-degree cameras.

Video is captured at a locked 30fps rate. You can't push it to 60fps (a plus for slow-motion and fast-moving action), nor can you dial back to the cinematic 24fps setting. If you opt to output 360-degree footage from the app it's saved at 4K resolution at a high 90MBps bit rate. It looks as good as other 360-degree cameras that record in 4K; that is to say, close-up details are strong, but distant objects are fuzzy.

Conclusions

Rylo wants you to rethink what a 360-degree camera does. Sure, it can capture and share spherical video, but that's not what you're paying for, especially when the 2017 Samsung Gear 360 sells for less than its $230 asking price. The big advantage offered by the Rylo is its software package, which makes it easy to do more with 360 video than simply capture everything around you.

And while I think the software can use a little bit of refinement, it's really good as is. I found it very easy to set camera moves and export video. The issue is that the video, when cropped down to a 16:9 frame, leaves something to be desired. We've seen so many good, small, inexpensive camcorders output crisp 1080p and 4K footage, that seeing video that's more standard definition in quality is surprising. The GoPro Fusion solves the problem by using a lot more pixels during capture, but it comes at a higher cost and, at press time, requires that you use pro-grade editing software to take advantage of its OverCapture 16:9 output mode.

The Rylo is an intriguing creative tool with a slick software solution. But I worry about its price. At $500 it's not an impulse purchase like the Gear 360. The GoPro Fusion is $700, which isn't a big jump if you're already thinking about a $500 camera, and while its software experience isn't finished, its video quality is noticeably stronger. If you're serious enough to pay the monthly fee for an Adobe Creative Cloud license, the GoPro is a better fit.

But if you're a phone-based video creator, and you want to create the type of videos that the Rylo captures, it's you're best option today. We'll just have to wait and see if GoPro can deliver a mobile Fusion editing experience that matches it. I think the Rylo is a decent overall buy for the right customer; just be aware that its video isn't the best in its class.

Rylo

Bottom Line: The Rylo camera captures 360-degree video, but with the intent of cropping and displaying it in a traditional manner. It's a great concept, but it needs more pixels to deliver clear results.

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About the Author

Senior digital camera analyst for the PCMag consumer electronics reviews team, Jim Fisher is a graduate of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he concentrated on documentary video production. Jim's interest in photography really took off when he borrowed his father's Hasselblad 500C and light meter in 2007. He honed his writing skills at re... See Full Bio

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